- NoCOUG networking and happy hour at O'Kane's Irish
Pub, 200 Montgomery St., San Ramon (Leaving the conference, turn right
on Bollinger Canyon Road, right on Market Place, and left on Montgomery
Street.)

"The Burden of Proof" Oracle
is a subtle and complex piece of software with literally thousands of
features and capabilities. Despite this, there are still many so-called
experts who insist on publishing quick hints and tips that are supposed
to fix everybody's biggest problems.

In the absence of proof - no "expert" should
be trusted. Without at least a test case, no tip should be considered
relevant or valid.

This key-note discusses why it is important to insist
on a reasonable level of proof before accepting any hint or tip as being
worthwhile.

"How the CBO Works"
The Cost Based Optimizer has been around for many years, but still
suffers a lot of criticism because there rarely seems to be any
connection between the cost of a query, and the speed with which it
performs.

This presentation looks at the underlying mechanisms
of the CBO and explains why this is the case.We start with a basic example in Oracle 8, and then
move on to some of the Oracle 9 features that are designed to make the
issues of earlier versions of Oracle non-existent.

Time and legal restrictions permitting, we will then
have a quick look at any interesting details in Oracle 10 that might make
a difference.

"More Examples of
Interpreting Wait Events to Boost System Performance" At any
given moment, every Oracle server process is either busy servicing a
request or waiting for something specific to happen-a condition we call a
"wait event." The Oracle instance maintains detailed statistics
of all wait events-how many times each session has waited for a specific
event, total time waited, and exactly what events are being waited on
right now. This information can be used to gain insight into the
performance of both your application and database. In this presentation,
we will quickly define what wait events are, detail how to extract wait
event information from the instance, and discuss enhancements to the wait
event interface in Oracle9i.

We'll spend the bulk of the session learning how to
interpret the wait event data we collect by way of new examples. Many of
us have heard of wait events and know how to query the v$ views, but in
this presentation we'll walk through real life examples of how to use
wait event data to diagnose problems and boost system performance.

"A Successful
Performance Tuning Methodology Using the Database Health Check"
Tuning Oracle goes well beyond SQL and simple reactive
troubleshooting.A
successful performance tuning methodology will chart a path to detect,
diagnose and resolve database issues for both proactive and reactive
tuning.Using a health check
involves profiling of the respective database, collecting information at
a defined interval, analyzing those collections, and presenting the
findings with information that takes the guesswork out of tuning.This presentation will define and
outline the health check procedures as well as how to employ this
practice as the core of a successful tuning methodology.

"Database Development with Oracle9i
JDeveloper" In addition to its support
for Java and XML, Oracle9i JDeveloper is a complete environment for SQL
and PL/SQL development and debugging. This session explores the database
development aspects of Oracle9i JDeveloper - including creating database
objects, editing and compiling PL/SQL code, running and debugging PL/SQL
and Java stored procedures along with executing and tuning SQL
statements. DBAs and database developers will learn how to use Oracle9i
JDeveloper for their development work.

"Introduction to Using Oracle with Perl and
Perl's Database Modules" Randal L.
Schwartz introduces the Perl DBI database interface.Prior knowledge of Perl is very
helpful.Knowledge of basic
database concepts such as SQL and tables will be presumed.

"Converting Oracle Forms and/or PL/SQL to
Java" With the emergence of Oracle 9i and
Oracle 9iAS, users are trying to understand how to migrate their
applications into the new "web enabled" environment.As well, many of these
application developers are finding that this migration can be time
consuming and overwhelming.As they move their applications into the Java environment they are
looking for the ability to facilitate a smooth transition.Users want to move quickly to
take advantage of new technology without having to spend enormous time
and financial resources.

This presentation discusses the technical aspects and
challenges of moving Oracle Forms and PL/SQL into Java and XML and
reviews the pros and cons of migrating the applications.It also reviews automated tools
that are available to perform this conversion.Detailed discussion is provided around the benefits of
utilizing the new technology available in 9i and 9iAS.

"Extending Materialized Views" From Summary table management in Oracle Discoverer
to a valuable tool for Decision Support and Data Warehousing,
Materialized Views can increase by many orders of magnitude the speed of
queries that access many hundreds of thousands or millions of
records.With the use of
Materialized Views, a user is able to query terabytes of detail data in
seconds or less, through the use of pre-computed summarizations and
joins, which greatly reduces the size of the original source data.

However, there are limitations within Materialized
Views.We will discuss
overcoming three of those biggest limitations:

- No LONG
support

-
Complete refreshes over slow or bad connections can sometimes never
finish

-
ORA-01555 on a complete refresh (or even a fast refresh) in a busy
database

"Managing Performance
Through Versioning of Statistics" Learn how to use versioning of
statistics in Oracle 9i to manage and enhance application performance.
This presentation will exemplify how statistics between different
environments such as development and production can be imported/exported
to simulate production data volumes and manage performance changes.

"Supporting Multiple Development Databases
Without Multiple DBAs" Development databases
tend to be smaller and less critical than production databases, or at
least that is the general perception. For developers working on a
critical release date, their perception is somewhat different. The number
of DBAs dedicated to support development database is usually limited and
in many cases, there aren't any at all. Using a set of simple cron
scripts and email, it is easy to continuously monitor, backup and gather
performance statistics for multiple development databases. While this
approach lacks sex appeal, it is also free. The process to install the
scripts and use the results is covered in detail from real-world
experience of using this process for the last year. The scripts reviewed
are provided.

"ETL-There is a New Sheriff in Town -
Oracle" ETL (Extract, Transformation and
Loading) is having a paradigm shift. Previously, ETL was done with tools
outside the database. Ab Initio, Data Stage and Informica were kings of
the ETL world. However, there were major disadvantages to this paradigm.
Third party ETL tools required a separate box because they had no
controls on the consumption of CPU resources.Third party ETL tools were not ingrated into the
database. This meant that ETL developers became experts in running the
tool; however, had no knowledge on how the tool related to the database.
In order to create fast and efficient ETL process, you needed to know
both. Oracle 9i is changing the ETL paradigm. This presentation will
cover these Oracle 9i ETL features and explain why you want to join the
paradigm shift and do ETL in the database.

Using Oracle Workflow to Automate Warehouse Jobs This
seminar will introduce you to the standalone version of Oracle Workflow
for the purpose of automating warehouse jobs. Using a real world
implementation scenario, you will get an overview of the architecture
used to implement Workflow into an existing warehouse. Learn some of the
potential issues and changes required to use Workflow with multiple
databases and with retrofitting existing code to run within the Workflow
framework.

If you have
suggestions for future meetings or would like to offer feedback on
previous conferences, then please complete our online survey or
send us an email.

Directions to ChevronTexaco Park in San Ramon

Address:
6101 Bollinger Canyon Road San Ramon, CA 94583Please note that the conference building is just
after the ChevronTexaco Campus.Upon arrival, enter the building at the East entrance where
you'll find NoCOUG representatives ready to sign you in.

From
Highway 680 South: Exit at Bollinger Canyon Road.
Turn left onto Bollinger Canyon Road (heading east over the freeway).
After passing ChevronTexaco Park Circle West, turn right into Bishop
Ranch 1. Address 6101 is the first building after entering the parking
lot. Park anywhere not restricted.

From
Highway 680 North: Exit at Bollinger Canyon
Road. Turn right onto Bollinger Canyon Road (heading east). After passing
ChevronTexaco Park Circle West, turn right into Bishop Ranch 1.Address 6101 is the first
building after entering the parking lot. Park anywhere not restricted.